The grit of a crumbling concrete foundation bites into the pads of your paws as you lope easily up the slope of a dilapidated wall, masonry chipping off twisted steel beams. You rise to a pinnacle of freedom, gazing down at the labyrinthine twists and turns of roads and alleyways that once played host to thousands of men and women going about their daily lives, blissfully unaware of the havoc that the Purge would one day reap.
You cast an idle glance to the west where you find the sun prepared to settle gently into a soft bed of cloud for the night. Good. There's still time, you think to yourself. You coil the muscles of your legs together tightly, springing with acrobatic grace to a higher platform, a leap that no human would have considered.
From here the ruins of the great city spread out below you in intricate detail, and you idly fancy yourself a giant, gazing over its dominion with a faint sense of pride and belonging. Lord of all you survey.
Haven. The refuge is all you've ever known, from your birth in the squalor of a small waterfront apartment to this very moment, perched atop the ruinous hulk of a long-abandoned office building.
Yours is the first generation of werewolves born and raised in captivity, a stark contrast to the green wilderness and freedom your elders speak of in the hush of the evening as they huddle in groups around the fires to keep warm. You've seen trees before, struggling for life between the cracks of empty patches of roadway. Scraggly bits of wood hardly worth the mention.
Let the elders lament the passing of their great wilderness. You're a new breed of lupine explorer, having traded in the forests for an urban jungle of steel and concrete.
Without warning, the floor beneath your paws crumbles, sending you tumbling into a free fall. It's quickly arrested by a bone-jarring crunch when you land on your back amid splinters of wood and stone. You manage to sound out a brief bark to alert your companions to your location before a cloud of blackness swallows up the sky and all becomes nothingness.
Falling, falling…
Is this truly how things happened, or is your mind playing tricks on you, trying to make sense of its peril and projecting soft outlines of better times as you descend through the air in a helpless free fall? A recollection of a face looks at you through the blackness, concerned eyes blinking before vanishing on a gust of ethereal wind.
You remember your mother in the vague sense that all children orphaned at a young age do. The touch of a loving hand. A few notes from a song hummed to lull you to sleep. That indefinable sense of belonging that only a parent can offer their child. It was important to her that you grew up with a strong sense of self—you read as much in the letters she left you after her passing.
Your head is swimming. You've got to wake up, latch onto your core being, and climb it upward through the darkness.
You think you hear your mother calling to you. The Haven wolves use only first names, as the pack is considered to be one family despite differences of background.
Yes, that's right. Jen. How could you have forgotten? You can feel it now. Something close to pain, but pain means you're getting closer to the surface. It helps you remember that you're still alive.
Other things begin to come into focus as the black horizon turns to a milky gray. The more you collect your sense of self, the faster the surface of consciousness rushes up to greet you.
The elders claim that you were a difficult child, always focused on whatever suited you best at the time rather than the exacting standards werewolf society demands. In the long years following your birth, you came to define yourself on your own, but others have a tendency to require more impersonal definitions.
You hadn't spent all that long cloistered with the other wolves of your gender. In the Haven pack, youths are mixed at an early age, leaving the pups to grow and learn as they see fit. Eventually you grew old enough to consider romantic interests.
Before long, you joined the school where you were allowed to choose a primary area of study. These studies defined your early experiences in the pack and helped you become the wolf you are today.
Your mind grasps through the bubbling murky waters, desperately close to consciousness now.
You were enamored with stories of the great packleaders of the past, long years before the pack was relocated to the refuge of Haven. You hold a deep admiration for Rowtag the great peacemaker, and Eyota, the wise woman who led the Wind Rivers pack to greatness for almost half a century. You grew strong in will from your studies of what made them great leaders.
Your vision swims into bleary focus, and you're greeted by a look of grave concern on a lupine muzzle. Brown shaggy fur, yellow eyes…
It's Dena! He must have been the first to find you after you fell. Dena was always a sensitive pup, and he took to a quiet life of study with the elders early on, the rough-and-tumble life of his packmates less interesting than learning about the world outside Haven's walls.
Dena has always been there when you needed him, and you've tried to do the same for him. Over the years, his affection for you has grown less and less subtle, but it remains an unspoken line he is unwilling to cross, valuing your friendship over potential rejection.
You're confident that whatever happens between the two of you, there won't be any ill feelings, even if you eventually drift apart and see less of each other.
Growing up alongside someone in a closed environment makes getting along together a necessity, but you've never taken the time to get to know Dena properly. You can't say how you'll feel in the future at this point.
Dena looks away for a moment and waves a hand, beckoning the rest of your friends. "Guys, she's over here!"
He looks back to you, his brow knit with worry. "That was an awful fall. The elders would be furious if they knew you were taking risks like that, Jen. I'm sure they have a good reason for wanting to keep us out of the Snarl." He shakes his head. "How did I let you guys talk me into this?"
"Learn to live a little, Dena! We can't live our entire lives afraid to explore our own front yard!" you said.
Dena crosses his arms. "And look where it got you, all broken and bruised. You're lucky you were in your lupine form."
Pieces of loose concrete scatter in a dusty cloud as Lapu and Tiva round the corner of the old office building. The two wolves nudge each other, and Lapu opens his muzzle in a wide, toothy grin.
"Looks like the Snarl's claimed another victim!" Lapu jokes, tongue lolling from his mouth as he breathes hard. "I still can't believe you got that high up before the building collapsed under your feet!" He looks over at Dena. "Leave it to Jen to risk exposing us out here in the Snarl just to show off her agility. What if one of the elders had seen her up there?"
Dena wheels and snaps at Lapu, sending the gangly male skittering backward, tripping over a piece of rubble and landing on his rump with a puff of concrete dust. The youth's unusual blond coat now peppered with gray, he wobbles to his feet as Dena continues examining your injuries. Tiva snickers at the boy, smacking his side and giggling as his fur lets off big puffs of dust.
Dena finishes up going over your wounds. "In case you care, Lapu, her injuries are healing up just fine, so it looks like we'll still be able to make it to the bridge on time."
Tiva sneezes and wipes a smudge of dust from her nose.
You groan and get back to your feet, wincing as the knitting bones in your right knee click uncomfortably. Not for the first time you thank whatever gods reside above that you were born with a werewolf's regenerative ability.
The wolves of Haven can change their forms at will, but while your lupine body provides you with greater dexterity and healing, the form is difficult to maintain for more than half a day at a time due to the massive increase in metabolism that fuels your abilities.
Lapu snarls and spits on the ground. "We should leave without her. The injury will only slow her down."
You leap to your feet, quickly stretching your injured leg to make sure it will hold your weight. Satisfied at the speed of your recovery, you jump up to the next level of the building in a single swift motion, launching yourself gracefully through the window of the building beside it, grabbing ahold of a piece of rebar to swing your body around to the ground in a fluid arc. You complete the circuit, panting as you plop down in front of Lapu, your face painted with a self-satisfied smirk.
"Damn," the boy mutters under his breath. "Sometimes I forget just how fast you heal. All right, you've proved your point. We should all get moving, or we'll run out of time. We can't get stuck on the other side after nightfall."
The Q Bridge is difficult to approach from concealment; the ruined buildings of the former city stop a good half mile before the pavement even begins to rise.
Having considered this, Tiva came up with a plan to access the bridge from the south side, hiding among the charred scrap metal husks of the old oil containers that litter the coastline near the base of the bridge.
When you reach the underside of the span, you take ropes from Tiva's backpack, each fastened to a grappling hook. Tiva worked in secret on the hooks for the past few weeks, smuggling them out of the machine shop where she works after closing hours. The ropes will allow you to bypass the checkpoint on this end of the bridge, although you'll still have to be lucky to avoid any patrolling guards.
"Here goes nothing," Tiva says with a grin as she tosses her hook upward. It latches against the underside of the bridge.
"Lucky toss," Lapu says as he attempts to replicate Tiva's throw, failing miserably time and again as the hook falls back to the ground with a dull thud. The boy looks over at you and Dena, but neither of you are doing much better. "Can't we all just take the same rope up?" he mutters despondently.
"I swear," Tiva says, "you guys couldn't do anything without my help!" One by one she tosses the hooks up into the tangle of steel beams underneath the bridge, cords of muscle straining on her arms.
Unlike many other wolves your age, she bulked up during her long teenage years spent working the forge. "We need to stay together," she says. "We can't have half of us sitting around for ten minutes at the top of the bridge waiting to get caught while the rest of you take your time climbing!"
"Hey, Jen," Tiva calls over to you. "Let's make this fun—I'm in the mood for a game! If I can get to the top of the rope first, you'll cover my shift at the machine shop tomorrow."
You raise an eyebrow. "And if I win?"
"Hmm," she mutters. "How about I owe you a favor? You can cash it in any time. Nothing huge, mind you, but I'll owe you one."
You shrug your shoulders. It sounds fair enough to you. You've never really minded the machine shop anyway. You look upward at the ropes as they gently swing in the breeze. It's a long climb, and it's been a while since you've practiced. Still though, you shouldn't have a problem getting to the top. The question is, can you beat Tiva?
Tiva starts off strong, burning all of her energy in an immediate bid to get higher on the rope than you. You labor on behind, conserving your energy for the final push as bit by bit the gap between you and your opponent closes.
When you pass her, Tiva looks over at you in consternation. Her eyes widen in surprise as you pull yourself up over the edge of the bridge moments ahead of her. You turn to proffer a paw to help Tiva up.
She shakes her head, pulling first one leg then the other over the lip of the overpass.
"I didn't think you had it in you!" she says, gasping for air. "Close race though. Guess I owe you a favor. It was kind of a mean bet for me to pull anyway with the way the shop's been going. Razor's been falling behind on the military's orders lately, and she's not kidding around. She's been pushing us hard." She looks off into the distance for a moment, seemingly troubled. "Oh well. I guess that's why I needed this distraction so badly."
Tiva paces nervously, muttering to herself until the tip of Dena's brown snout crests the lip of the bridge and finally all four of you have reached the top.
"No time to rest," she says, her eyes shifting back and forth, looking for patrols. "We should get across as soon as possible."
When the humans set up Haven as a refuge for your pack, they cleared a path on the bridge just wide enough for a truck to drive comfortably across. But the bridge was originally constructed to accommodate up to ten vehicles side by side, leaving you and your companions plenty of room to scurry among the debris as you make your way to the other end.
You reach the opposite landing half an hour later, miraculously without meeting any human patrols and narrowly avoiding contact with an unexpected minefield hidden on the northern edge of the bridge.
Tiva eyes the checkpoint leading off the span and into the human compound warily, sniffing at the air.
"Nobody's here, and I don't think their surveillance system is activated," she says, placing a paw against one of two tall, dark monoliths at either side of the landing. "No humming, no crackle of electricity. Let's go for it."
Four young werewolves enter human territory for the first time, slinking forward nervously until they're under the cover of a nearby side street. Afternoon is waning, and the stink of human is thick in the air.
At this point the group splits, each investigating an area that strikes their individual fancy. Later, you'll meet farther into the zone at the large building to the east. Until then, you each have an hour to do as you please.
Using a map the four of you sketched out from memories of overheard adult conversations, you made your plans weeks ago. Your skin crawls with excitement to finally see places you've heard whispers of since you were a pup.
The human military have built this small section of the refuge up over the years—bleak unornamented buildings in row after row used for everything from food storage to scientific research, if the rumors hold true. The base's uniformity is not all-encompassing, however. Some buildings from before the Purge still stand tall in stark contrast to the new expansion of efficient yet ultimately soulless architecture, and you find yourself inexplicably pleased that the humans allowed the old growth to remain—beacons of life breaking up the monotony of military precision.
Unsurprisingly, Dena decides to join you on the quest for knowledge, and the two of you slink from street to street. You come to a building you've pictured in your head for over a year now, ever since Sage Ahote mentioned it in one of his lectures.
"There it is!" Dena says under his breath, excitement evident even through the whisper. He points to a bright green sign emblazoned with a howling wolf's head and the name Dever Hall. His eyes grow wide. "It's just the way I imagined it!"
You reach out a paw to hold Dena back just as he is about to head out from cover to the hall's side entrance. Dena exhales in surprise. You point to a nearby window where the silhouettes of two humans are engaged in an animated argument behind the pulled shades.
"We'll need to be careful how we approach this," you say. "The building could be filled with scientists."
Dena balks when you tell him your plan, but his protests eventually fade away as you assure him that you'll be able to take care of the scientists yourself, and he won't need to worry about getting his paws dirty.
"We can't just let them see us and then run away to sound the alarm," you tell him, hoping that he'll see reason. He nods slowly, and you decide to take that as an affirmation.
You pass through the side door and into the academic building. You crouch silently in a small supply closet as your eyes grow accustomed to the dim light of the interior.
Dena gasps, and you clamp a hand over his mouth as the sound of footsteps approach your hiding place.
You hold your breath as the footsteps stop right in front of the closet door. The scientist mutters something, and you can hear him shuffling papers in his hands before he continues down the hall.
Dena clutches your shoulder, a shiver of fear running down his arm and into you, causing your fur to bristle.
"Is he gone?" he whispers.
You hold a finger to your lips, cocking an ear toward the door and focusing on the building's sounds. A door closes farther down the hall, and you breathe a sigh of relief. "Let's get moving."
You head back out into the hallway, closing the door behind you. "We need to make this quick. There's no telling just how many people this building is filled with."
Eventually you find your way into a vaulted library room, multiple floors of bookcases filled to bursting with knowledge the humans have long forbidden the werewolves of Haven.
Dena stands frozen in awe as you search the room for humans. Crouching low to the floor, you listen as your eyes sweep the area. You grab Dena's attention and pull him back to reality. "Looks like we've got the room to ourselves for now."
He nods, starting toward the nearest shelves while you move in the opposite direction. You each find several books covering topics ranging from studies of the paranormal, which includes a lengthy dissertation on werewolves and something called a "vampire," to books on chemistry and physics. Dena takes the choicest volumes and slips them into a sling pack that he brought for just this purpose.
You're just about to leave the library when a stack of notes on a nearby table catches your eye. A headline boldly proclaims Haven Observation Station 1.
Interesting, you think to yourself. Have they been watching us this whole time?
It takes several minutes to pull Dena away from the stacks of books, but he finally relents. You leave the building the way you came in, grateful that you haven't caused any commotion along the way.
He hands a book to you once you're out of the building and back to the relative safety of the shadowy alleyways. "Look at this! I picked it up right before we left."
You brush a thin layer of dust off the cover. "The Beginner's Guide to Lock Picking," you read out loud. "That should come in handy."
Looking up at the sun, you realize with a start that you're almost late for your rendezvous with your friends at the massive warehouse to the east. Any other areas you hoped to explore will have to wait for subsequent adventures.
The warehouse is situated on the far eastern end of the complex, and while it doesn't eclipse many other buildings in terms of height, it positively dwarfs them in girth. From north to south, the giant building covers the better part of a half mile, its spartan exterior winking dully in the light of the slowly setting sun.
You find your companions right where they're supposed to be, patiently waiting for you to arrive by the southeast corner, hidden among a cluster of rusted barrels whose contents have long since been drained away by the humans' machinery.
Tiva fidgets anxiously while Dena's head swivels left and right as though he expects the group to be discovered at any moment.
"So, one last bit of exploration before we throw in the towel?" Lapu says, nodding toward a small door on the eastern side of the warehouse. "It's way too late to chicken out, guys."
Not that you would; the warehouse is the subject of many and varied tales among the werewolf youth, all of which are exciting and mysterious. Claims of vast wealth, macabre horrors, and experimental weapons are just the tip of the popular speculation iceberg.
The worst part is that the adults have been here and refuse to tell you what's inside. What better reason could there be for a group of wolves on the verge of adulthood to sneak in and have a look? It's time to discuss your plan to get in and explore without getting caught.
You walk into the warehouse with the others, heads held high and self-assured as though you have every reason and right to belong there. You're almost disappointed when you encounter no humans.
You're in a large room, partitioned off from the rest of the building by corrugated metal walls. The room is filled with piles of scrap metal in varying states of disrepair, most of it covered with rust. Not a promising start. You walk over to a door on the opposite partition and swing it open. The warehouse floor spreads out in a vast plain of gray, interrupted only by the bulk of a large, graceful-looking contraption.
"A helicopter!" Dena gasps with wonder. "I've only seen them up in the sky before, and they looked so tiny." He walks up and runs a paw along the cold metal of the machine. "It's absolutely magnificent! Kinda rusty though. Maybe it's in here for repairs?"
A sharp cry from farther into the warehouse startles you, and you turn in its direction, peering off into the dim light. Another wall separates the northern half of the building from the helicopter hangar. You're sure the sound came from the other side.
"What was that?" Lapu says, clearly unnerved.
"It sounded like someone in pain," Tiva replies, her fingers twitching reflexively, claws clinking against one another. She starts toward the source of the cry. "Someone might need our help!"
Lapu frowns, his brow furrowed in worry. "I don't know if this is a good idea."
But it's too late for second thoughts, because the four of you, Lapu included, are already headed toward the sound. Curiosity brought you here to the forbidden human enclave, and curiosity drives you farther into the belly of the beast.
The northern wall is split by a long, grimy window, and you huddle underneath it. Now that you're closer, you can hear more than the occasional wail or moan; discordant, strange, and terrible sounds create a constant low buzz from the other side.
You have to know what is happening, and it appears that you're not alone. As one, the four of you slowly raise your eyes to the window.
Madness. Sheer madness.
Strange scenes torn from your darkest nightmares are arrayed about the adjoining room in a splattered mishmash of the macabre where every semblance of what is right and good in your world is snuffed out at once.
Whimpers and dull moans of pain permeate the air as humans dressed all in white go about a deadly dance, a ritual of flesh and surgical instruments.
Your eye locks onto a long, twisting tube of clear plastic, slowly filling with dark red liquid. Your mind tries desperately to escape the terrible truth.
"They're killing them, aren't they?"
Dena's whisper brings you back to reality, and you shake your head, blinking rapidly. "I don't think so. This is something worse. The humans know we regenerate."
You return your gaze to the window, drawn by morbid fascination as you watch more than half the adults of your pack suffer at the hands of human doctors. Bone saws hack and scalpels slice, testing the limits of werewolf physiology and suffering, barely waiting for the wounds to heal before attacking again with detached, businesslike efficiency.
So this is the great secret that the elders have been keeping from you for all these years? Could these inhumane experiments have been going on week after week without your knowledge? Of all the revelations you were excited to discover, this is the very last thing you expected to find.
"Oh gods," Dena groans, pointing at a wolf on a nearby table. "Is that Lapu's…father?"
An acrid stench brings your attention back to this side of the window, and you realize that Lapu has pissed himself.
"We have to get out of here, we have to get out…" the boy mumbles again and again in a mantra of fear and revulsion.
You find yourself nodding in agreement, and you will your legs to move again, slowly creeping back to the door you came through with the others trailing behind. You reach the exit without being spotted, utterly relieved that you didn't create a major disturbance before coming to the warehouse.
It's impossible to know what the humans are capable of at this point.
The four of you flee the warehouse, your fear urging speed out of tired leg muscles that you never knew you had. Your heart feels as though it's about to burst as you round a corner halfway back to the bridge.
You almost run straight into a lone soldier who looks as surprised to see you as you are to see him.
"Don't move! Stay right where you are!"
A combination of nerves and fear crease the grizzled soldier's forehead, collecting small pools of sweat as he steps toward you and your friends. His hands tremble despite the fact that they hold a semiautomatic rifle, and he stinks of fear.
If your mind weren't preoccupied with more pressing matters, you might wonder if the man has ever even seen a group of werewolves before.
A sharp whine catches in Dena's lupine throat, and he flinches away as the muzzle of the soldier's weapon shifts toward him in a nervous jerk. "We were only curious," he whimpers. "We didn't see anything!"
But you did see something. Something horrible. And your world will never seem the same again.